Recently, the GiveWell research team has focused on collecting more feedback about our work and processes, such as through our Change Our Mind contest, our Research Council, and by asking donors for feedback. While we typically ask for candid, live feedback from the organizations we work with, we had not previously invited anonymous assessment of our grantmaking process. We know our processes are different from those of many other funders, and we want to make sure our work reflects our values of maximizing global well-being, transparency, truth-seeking, and considerateness.

So, in July 2024, we sent out our first anonymous survey to people we’ve worked with during grant investigations. The survey was sent to 55 individuals representing 40 organizations that participated in a GiveWell grant investigation from January 1, 2022, to March 31, 2024. It focused on their experiences with our process and post-grant follow-up, and also included a few general questions asking for their feedback about GiveWell. We received 32 responses to the survey, a response rate of 58%. Two of the 32 responses were from organizations that did not receive a grant.

What we learned

Overall, the people who responded to our survey rated their satisfaction with GiveWell’s investigation process as 4.2 out of 5. The highest-rated areas were responsiveness and respectful communication, well-reasoned information requests, and satisfaction with the post-investigation process.

However, there were a couple of areas where responses clearly indicated that we’re falling short of where we’d like to be:

• The longer the grant investigation took, the less satisfied respondents were with the length of the investigation. The chart below illustrates this pattern. This discontent seemed to be less about the time, however, and more about our communication. In the survey’s free responses, 13 individuals emphasized the topic of managing expectations regarding an investigation’s timeline. Three of these mentions were positive, but the majority suggested that GiveWell could improve its communication of decision-making milestones. Our investigations are intensive and can sometimes take unexpected turns when we learn new information. We need to make sure we’re being both transparent about expectations and responsive to the funding constraints and timelines of the organizations we work with.
• GiveWell internal team transitions can be difficult for the people we work with and create confusion on both sides. Last year, some GiveWell researchers reshuffled their focus areas, which meant that there were changes in the primary GiveWell contact for some grantees. We learned that this was sometimes difficult for the grantees who had to adjust to these changes.
• Some respondents highlighted that we could do a better job communicating our decision-making criteria throughout a grant investigation. This includes communicating our requirements to progress through investigation stages, when milestones are approaching and reached, and likelihood of funding throughout the course of an investigation. We also received feedback that we should more clearly communicate changes to our standard minimum cost-effectiveness funding threshold.

Our next steps

The survey had a limited sample size (32 responses), but those responses represented a range of grant sizes, research areas, levels of familiarity with GiveWell, and GiveWell grant investigators. We plan to use the same survey instrument again in the future with a larger pool of respondents to get more opinions and see trends over time.

In the meantime, the team is working on specific ways to improve the weak areas highlighted by the survey, including:

• Making sure we are asking about organizations’ deadlines early in the investigation process. We will do our best to accommodate those deadlines by planning our grant investigation timelines more transparently, being open when things change or take longer than expected, and, when appropriate, providing bridge funding to help a program operate until we can make a decision about a larger grant.
• Ensuring smooth handoffs during team transitions. We can create more stable working relationships by minimizing staff movement between teams. While we expect there may be team transitions in the future, we’ll do our best to minimize these and be sure that relationships and knowledge are handed off smoothly.
• Continuing to improve transparency around our decisions and criteria. This includes communicating more clearly about our decisions and learning throughout an investigation, as well as incorporating more qualitative information in our decision-making. We are including input from site visits, subject matter experts (including our Research Council), and stakeholders in our process in addition to our cost-effectiveness analyses.